A free-oscillation interferometer uses atoms confined in a harmonic trap.
Bragg scattering from an off-resonant laser is used to split an atomic wave
function into two separated packets. After one or more oscillations in the
trap, the wave packets are recombined by a second application of the Bragg
laser to close the interferometer. Anharmonicity in the trap potential can lead
to a phase shift in the interferometer output. In this paper, analytical
expressions for the anharmonic phase are derived at leading order for
perturbations of arbitrary power in the position coordinate. The phase
generally depends on the initial position and velocity of the atom, which are
themselves typically uncertain. This leads to degradation in the interferometer
performance, and can be expected to limit the use of a cm-scale device to
interaction times of about 0.1 s. Methods to improve performance are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure